


How Do You Breathe Without Dreams?

by eruditeprincess



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruditeprincess/pseuds/eruditeprincess
Summary: STAR Labs just feels empty now with the two of them, recovering after Jay.Title from Ruelle's Where Do We Go From Here





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long week and I've been bored, so this was born.  
> Hope it makes sense.  
> Don't own anything, usually a Bellarke writer but these two are just way too cute.  
> Tumblr is erudite-princess.  
> If this is your thing and you want to leave a kudos or a comment, feel free. It's up to you.

STAR Labs felt empty with just them in there now, with Barry moping over at Joe and Iris’ and Harry trying to hang out with Jesse after his capture and her subsequent return from Opal City. He tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, watching Caitlin out of the corner of his eye, her hands shaking as they held a syringe. She’d been having these moments ever since Jay got killed in front of her, moments of hands shaking and voice wavering, of quivering lips and silent tears streaking down her face. It was in these moments that she preferred to be alone, but he kept checking on her, making sure she was hydrated and fed, making sure that the gauntness of her face was just from the grief.

 

Occasionally she went over to him, asked him to show her how something worked (he knew she already knew the specifications and knew the system perfectly), and he obliged her, allowing her to find a feature he had kept hidden from her, or teaching her a small method he knew could comfort her. He allowed himself, in these tiny respites from mere silence, to soothe her with his talk of _look what I just added to my metahuman alert app_ , or _why don’t we see what happens when we press these buttons_.

 

(Pressing those buttons were always a bad idea, but she never stopped him as he pressed them and the shrieking wail of one or other of their alarms as it activated.

 

One day, he managed to activate the fire drill alarm. She was soaked from her position from the sprinklers around Barry’s suit, where she had been investigating a rip he still needed to mend. Her hair was plastered to her face but, for one in a while, she turned to him with a gloriously bright smile, which sent a small _zing_ of electricity through him)

 

She had started bringing heat pads to the labs now, using one every once in a while to heat her hands. These were the moments where he worried she was turning into Killer Frost, especially with the way she closed herself off some days, but she’d been like this after Ronnie, before going to work in Mercury Labs, and even before, when her father died, back when he’d just started, spending weeks holed up in the labs with minimal contact with others. The only person she’d let in back then was Dr Wells, fake Wells, who had comforted her with the same manner as he had anyone else, just distant enough to not be involved, but close enough to make sure she was safe, and hydrated, and well fed, and loved. He doesn’t know what went down between the two of them at that time, whether Wells’ connection with Caitlin ran deeper than just employer-employee, whether the bond that had emerged when Caitlin finished her intense grieving, when it just became gentler, quieter, and she was going on dates with Ronnie and they all started hanging out as a group, the three musketeers, almost. When Ronnie died, she fell back into the routine, but this time she let him in instead of fake Wells, let him comfort her and make sure she was rested, and well fed, and hydrated, and just kept up-to-date with Barry, once he arrived into their shell of a home. The heat pads, she’d claimed, helped keep her circulation going, helped her stop freezing in her lab, where the thermostat was always low, because she always wanted to help the environment. He’d once tried to say to turn the thermostat up, but she informed him primly that _it’s right for my experiments at this temperature_.

 

He began sleeping at STAR Labs, finding an old room with a couch he could easily curl up on, only leaving to buy more food or check his mail or try to get rid of his new dust bunny collection forming at his apartment. He found a TV and brought it up to the cortex, loading up Mario Kart with the electronics he brought from his place, persuading her to come and play with him, and, for once, she agreed, and they were racing each other, cheers brightening up the cold darkness their silence had provided. She always played as Princess Daisy, declaring that _Peach is overrated anyway_ , and he agreed with her on that one, playing as Luigi every time, stating _Mario is overrated_ , eliciting a tiny laugh out of her. He beat her most of the time but there was a moment where she beat him, and she leaped up and danced around the cortex, sticking her tongue out at him and grinning, the smile splitting her face.

 

They had a movie night one night, her dragging a couch from somewhere else and setting it up, both of them curled up watching a thriller that got his heart racing and caused her to curl into his side, fingers teasing the bottom of his hair (it was getting longer now, and he needed a haircut, but her fingers wove through the thick, dark strands, and she was quiet as he let her do that, let her take comfort in the fact he was there whilst being engrossed by the bright lights, the stunning visuals and the suspenseful action of the movie. She fell asleep on his chest like that, one hand woven into the bottom of his hair and the other resting on his chest, just over his heart, her face still towards the screen. The movie had ended and he had loaded up Netflix, letting her pick a police comedy (she loved comedy and murder mystery, he discovered one day, when she took him to a comedy gig with Ronnie and came out with a huge smile on her face, her eyes sparkling) and slowly settling down. The clock on his monitor was flashing the time, informing him that it was three in the morning, but he didn’t care. Her face was relaxed, for the first time in the two years since Barry woke up and all hell broke loose, and he brushed a loose strand of hair to the side, letting her peaceful face glow in the light of the TV, the volume muted so her soft snores could be heard in the stillness of the room. Her touch electrified him, sending his nerve endings blazing by all the sensations he was feeling. She gripped his arm tightly when he tried to move her, so he pulled a blanket they had thrown on the floor over them and settled down to sleep.

 

When he woke up, she was still on him, her body pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with his (he couldn’t remember the last time she took her heels off, revealing that she was, in fact, the same height as him. The blanket had curved around her in the night, leaving him with cold toes but her like a burrito. Her hand was still tangled in his hair, but her head had moved so her lips were touching the corner of his lips, an electric current running through him at that position ( _just one small adjustment and you can kiss her,_ his traitorous mind reminded him, and he repressed that tiny voice, mocking him in the back of his mind).

 

She stretched as she woke up, a small groan of _Cisco?_ coming from her lips, her hazel eyes slowly fluttering open to reveal the captivating iris. He responded with a small grunt and she gave him a small strained smile, the weight of the world starting to settle back on her shoulders, her eyes settling into the line they had been in for so so long ( _too long_ , his brain told him). She didn’t seem to realise their position (or maybe she did), as she shuffled her mouth slightly and suddenly he was kissing her, soft and slow but also dirty and deep, her tongue slipping into his mouth as they continued. A small moan escaped his lips, but she kept on kissing him, nibbling gently on his lower lip in the way only a lover would after a long, sleepless night between the two of them, collapsed on a bed instead of on a shitty couch with coffee stains and naked instead of fully clothed, both in their rattiest attire but kissing still like experienced lovers, his hand venturing under her top and her hand exploring the exact curvature of his arse and discovering, to his immense pleasure, that her hands could cup it just so and he let out a glorious moan, cursing in a mixture of Spanish and English into her mouth. She let out a gorgeous low moan at that and _oh my god he loved this woman_.

 

She had long kicked the blanket off when they finished kissing, lazy, slow, soft kisses that elicited tiny moans from both of them and, at points, soft grunts as she ground against his thigh with her core, her dark hair falling over one shoulder and tickling his cheek as their mouths connected. He pulled back first, his lips kiss swollen and his eyes bright and alert, and she opened up her stunning hazel eyes ( _Dios mio, her eyes…_ ) and her lips, all red and damp and sinful, opened slightly, revealing her perfect teeth.

“You and me?” her voice sounded slightly lower as she met his eyes, and he smiled slightly.

“Here and now,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over her lips, and she connected her lips to his again, with lighter kisses. These kisses were chaste and full of longing for _him_ , of all people, and her hand still wandered, the cool skin brushing over his abdomen and stomach, and reaching up to his shoulders, softly stroking the skin there, and he realised he found comfort in her arms.

 

Maybe she loved him too.

**Author's Note:**

> Really hoping this one makes more sense than the last story I put up.


End file.
